Indian Creek Circles 4-H Club collects items for soldiers

Sunday

Feb 17, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The 4-H Citizenship project aims to help 4-H’ers become involved members of their community. This occurs through the development of skills related to speaking and collaborating, understanding service learning and the different styles of community service.

Maddox Weigelt and Austin Boege of the Indian Creek Circles 4-H Club presented information on volunteer ideas for veterans at VA Hospitals and deployed soldiers at the club’s February meeting. The boys also had club members make homemade Valentine cards and goodie bags that will be sent to 35 soldiers from Iowa who are on deployment at this time.

Maddox comes from a long line of military service men and has been volunteering at the VA Hospital since he was 5 years old.

For the sixth year in a row, Maddox has assembled holiday gift bags for veterans at the VA Central Iowa Health Care System in Des Moines. By collecting donations from his friends and family, he purchases items for the gift bags, which contain small items like socks, cologne, word finds and snacks. He then personally delivers the gift bags to veterans at the VA hospital.

In addition to the holiday gift bags, Maddox has tie-dyed T-shirts for the veterans, held a Cookie-n-Canvas Party, raised money to buy a DVD player and DVDs for the rec room at the VA hospital and sent care packages to deployed soldiers.